


Home Improvement

by olderbynow



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, However that works, Please ignore those holes and fly safely, There are however plot holes you can fly a Tiger Moth through, There is no plot, This fic is nothing but an excuse to get Jack in shirt-sleeves and wet clothes, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-21 18:19:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8255683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olderbynow/pseuds/olderbynow
Summary: Jack is dealing with a personal matter. Miss Fisher investigates.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fire_Sign](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fire_Sign/gifts).



> For Fire_Sign, because sometimes you just need a bit of wet Jack in your life.

Phryne Fisher strides into City South, quick steps that signal purpose and determination. (The best way to get what you want, she finds, is to act as if it’s already been handed to you. People are so much less likely to object if they think you’re allowed to be where you’re going.)

But then of course there’s Hugh Collins, who knows exactly where she’s allowed to go, and although there’s never much conviction behind his objections, he does still insist on voicing them far more often than there’s any reason to.

“Uh, Miss Fisher. The inspector’s not in there,” he says, ending a phone call abruptly, holding up a hand as if that’ll make any difference at all.

“No?” She turns and gives him a look that’s both friendly and skeptical, trying to decide if Jack has put him up to this.

(They haven’t seen each other for nearly a week, and it’s possible she… misses him. _Slightly_. She thought they were fine, back on the right path - whatever that means - Compton and Concetta no longer an issue, but he hasn’t been around for nightcaps since that bottle of wine he showed up with out of the blue, and there have been no cases to bring them together. 

And if there are no _actual_ cases, you just have to invent one, which is why she’s here, carrying a photograph that is the flimsiest of excuses.)

“He telephoned this morning and said he wouldn’t be in until the afternoon.” Collins looks nervous, almost definitely hiding _something_.

“Really?” Her eyebrows are raised in question, and she walks to the door of Jack’s office anyway, not bothering to knock before opening it. The room is empty.

When she turns back around Hugh has an expression on his face she might interpret as ‘I told you so’ if she didn’t know any better. 

“And _why_ isn’t the inspector in this morning, Hugh?” she asks. Charming with just a hint of don’t-you-dare-lie-to-me, a blend that almost always works on the constable.

“He said it was a… personal matter,” Hugh admits reluctantly. Clearly she’s getting to the part he doesn’t want her to know.

“What type of personal matter?”

(Unbidden, images of Concetta flash through her mind. He said _Strano’s_ was closed, but a closed restaurant can easily be reopened. The last time Jack had a ‘personal matter’ he wouldn’t tell her about he was getting a divorce. What if…?

No, surely not!)

“He didn’t specify, miss.” Hugh looks almost relieved when he says it, so definitely telling the truth. 

“Thank you, Hugh.” She waves and leaves him at the front desk looking utterly bewildered that she’s not pushing any further, but she’s too busy weighing her options to bother with questions he won’t know the answer to, anyway. 

*

She pauses in his front garden - surprisingly neat, and surprisingly varied. She supposes she _shouldn’t_ be surprised to find that Jack is an amateur gardener - really, she shouldn’t be surprised by anything when it comes to him anymore, but she still finds that she is, continually and much to her delight. Taking the few steps onto his front porch quickly, she knocks on his door - quick raps, imitating his own ‘policeman’s knock’ - before she can tell herself that this is in fact a terrible idea. 

“It’s open,” she hears from inside. Strange that he wouldn’t come to the door. Clearly Jack clings much less firmly to formalities when he’s at home than he does, well, _anywhere_ else. (This truly _is_ surprising.) She pushes the door open and walks inside.

“Jack?” she calls out, walking slowly through his living room, taking in the worn but comfortable armchairs by the fire, the wall lined with bookshelves, the case files spread out on his dining table. At least the mountain of paperwork can explain why she hasn’t seen him in the evenings.

“Miss Fisher?” he replies from another room, sounding too confused for her to decide if it’s covering for annoyance at her intrusion.

She takes a steeling breath and plasters a winning smile on her face. The kind that demands acquiescence, sometimes even from Jack. Oh, she hopes this is one of those times.

(A week of him staying away, and then her invading his home like this, when she’s fairly certain he’s not aware that she even knows where he lives. It doesn’t seem likely that it’ll be one of those times.)

She makes her way down a short hallway, passing a kitchen and a bedroom, both doors ajar, both rooms empty, and then she stops at the last door and finds herself at the entrance to the lavatory.

Jack is in his suit trousers and shirt, sleeves folded up and his braces hanging around his legs. His hair is messy, not yet forced into submission by his pomade, and there are grease stains up his arms and on his shirt.

And he is soaking wet.

She stares at him, not sure she’d be able to tear her eyes away from the semi-transparent shirt that’s clinging to his back, outlining his muscles in a way that is both tantalising and not enough at all, if she was ordered to.

“Miss Fisher,” he says in greeting, somehow managing to sound dry although the rest of him is decidedly not that.

“Jack.” She blinks to rid her mind of the lustful thoughts currently running through it, does her best to disguise it as a fluttering of eyelashes, but the half-smirk on his face would suggest that she isn’t fooling anyone. “What happened here?”

“I thought I’d install a second shower,” he says sarcastically, both hands still gripping the towel he has wrapped around what is clearly a burst pipe, water still seeping through it and dripping down his hands to the already wet floor.

She bites her lip. “A bit low, perhaps, but I like the way you think.”

He turns and looks at where he’s struggling to keep the water inside the pipe, exactly level with his hips. He blinks slowly, an expression she knows entirely too well from their murder investigations. She can almost hear him mentally counting to ten.

“Why haven’t you turned off the water at the main?”

He gives her a long-suffering look. “Because if I move away, this happens,” he tells her and then releases his hands, letting the towel drop away.

She screams, a rather undignified sound, and takes a step back, shocked by the amount of water rushing out of the pipe and spraying _everywhere_. His hands close around the towel and leak again quickly, and he looks at her expecting his point to be made.

Which it has been.

“Where do I turn it off?” she asks, because as much as she’s enjoying watching him in this state (And boy, is she enjoying it) there are practical matters to attend to here.

He stretches slightly, looking behind her, as if he’s trying to work out the best way to explain, but then instead he asks: “Could you maybe, instead…?” He nods towards his hands. “I think that’ll be easier.”

With a silent apology to Dot for the state her suede shoes will be in, she walks across the wet floor to him and reaches out to take over where he’s holding the towel to the pipe.

He releases one hand first, taking hers and guiding it to where she needs to press, and then when he’s sure she has a proper grip he does the same with the other. For a few seconds his hands cover hers, wet and cold and sending shivers down her spine that are nothing to do with either wetness or cold. She drags her eyes away from the way his shirt is clinging to his chest and looks him in the eye, her breath uneven and her thoughts everywhere but on the burst pipe.

(She walked past his bedroom, she knows where he sleeps now.)

Finally, after an age and a half (that feels like no time at all) has passed, he smiles slightly. “Thank you,” he says and lets go of her hands.

That’s a terrible way to show his gratitude she wants to quip, but then he walks away and she decides that that’s rather a nice way to show it, his wet trousers clinging to his backside as he moves.

A few minutes pass and she thinks she can feel the pressure lessening, but in case she’s mistaken she doesn’t move her hands until he returns.

“You can let go now,” he tells her, leaning against the doorframe.

So she does. “What happened?” 

He shrugs. “There was a small leak, I thought I’d fix before going to work. Then that wrench happened and it wasn’t such a small leak.”

“And why didn’t you turn off the water before you began?”

He rolls his eyes. “It was such a small leak, it hardly seemed necessary.”

She nods, mock-seriously, looking around at the half inch of water on the floor slowly making its way down the drain, and then up his body, slowly. Very slowly.

“Clearly I was wrong,” he admits, so reluctantly she smiles.

“It happens,” she teases.

He pulls a face to signal his agreement. “So why are you here? I’m sure you didn’t just _guess_ I needed assistance?”

“Oh, Jack. I always think you need assistance. And I’m always right.”

“Not _always_ , Miss Fisher,” he argues, making an effort to look stern but not quite managing it with his wet clothes and messy hair.

“Often enough,” she insists, walking over to him. Only stops when she’s standing right in front of him, close enough that she can see the stitching in his clingy, wet shirt. To her surprise, he doesn’t move away. “I… have a case and I was hoping for some police assistance, so I came to the station, but Hugh said you were at home, dealing with a… personal matter.” It’s not a great explanation by any measure, but it does have the advantage of being true, so she should get points for that, at least.

“And you decided to come help me with this ‘personal’ matter’?” he asks, his eyebrows raised. He’s getting better at the stern but disheveled look, but he’s also standing quite close, so she finds she doesn’t particularly mind. And he doesn’t _really_ sound as if he minds terribly, either, which is another pleasant surprise.

“Yes?” She takes a deep breath and collects herself. She is Phryne Fisher, she will not come undone with lust simply because there’s an (admittedly _very_ attractive) man standing in front of her, half clad in a very wet suit that she cannot stop thinking about peeling off him. “And clearly it was good that I did.”

He smiles at that, nodding. “I suppose it was. Thank you.”

“Is there anything else you need assistance with?” she asks suggestively, her eyes travelling down as much of his body as she can manage this close up.

When she meets his eye again, he’s smirking. “No, thank you, Miss Fisher.”

She makes a face that’s meant to say ‘your loss’, and she’s almost certain his answering expression means something along the lines of ‘I know’. Which is why she doesn’t particularly mind when he instructs her to wait for him in the living room while he puts on some dry clothes.

And when he does appear some minutes later, buttoned up and very much as _Detective Inspector Robinson_ as she’s used to seeing him, she finds that mentally peeling off this dry suit isn’t too difficult either, now that she has fresh inspiration to work from. (That trip to Queenscliff seems such a long time ago and has had to get her through entirely too many nights spent alone in her bed.)

“What was this case you mentioned?” he asks, his hands adjusting the button she has just undone in her mind.

“Oh, it’s hardly worth mentioning,” she says dismissively (again, points should be awarded for truthfulness, and it really isn’t worth it). 

He looks at her, all business and refusing to be derailed.

“Just a missing…” she trails off, biting her lip, no longer so enamoured with the truth but not able to come up with a suitable lie on the spot. “Cat.”

He gives her a look of utter disbelief, but then he smiles as if he’s actually pleased by her answer - pleased by what he takes it to mean - and then he goes into the kitchen and makes them both breakfast.


End file.
